In a media gathering after its debut on Thursday, Zhou Deqiang, China Telecom's president, said his company will return to a high growth track this year.

China Telecom last year registered its lowest revenue growth, 5.6 percent, of the decade.

As the country's dominant fixed-line carrier, the former China Telecom was split up into two parts last week, new China Telecom and new China Netcom, after a year of debates and preparations. Suffering in the unstable operational environment, China Telecom's revenues and investments have dropped significantly.

After the restructuring, former China Telecom's business and assets in 10 provinces and municipalities north of the Yangtze River were transferred to the new China Netcom. New China Telecom's primary business sovereignty withdrew to the remaining 21 provinces.

Although many of new China Telecom's coastal provinces have a high telephone penetration rate, Zhou said the area's development potential is still lucrative.

He said the services of the fixed-line phones lagged far behind consumer demand.

The company will adopt flexible policies and introduce more new services to attract customers and will spend more money on fixed-line telephones, Zhou said.

To better compete with its rivals, China Telecom will launch two subsidiary branches in new China Netcom's field, in Beijing and northern China, within two months, the president said.

China Telecom has resumed its preparatory work for the initial public offering (IPO) in the overseas stock market, according to Chang Xiaobing, vice-president of China Telecom.

But he did not divulge the size of the IPO or when it will take place.

"We are actively pushing forward the process for public listing and hope it will help us upgrade our management level and set up a modern management stimulation system to connect our staff's pay with the results of their work," Chang said.

China's two mobile telecom carriers, China Mobile and China Unicom, both went public in the overseas bourses and received rich benefits in terms of modern management and financial operations.

(China Daily May 21, 2002)